Developer revises plans for apartment project in midtown Ventura

Midtown Ventura residents got their first look Thursday at the latest plan to build homes on the site of the old Ban-Dar honky tonk bar on Main Street.

The property — an empty lot since the Ban-Dar building was demolished in 2002 — is on the corner of Main Street and Central Avenue, a block east of the Five Points intersection. The city approved a condominium development there a few years ago, but the recession killed that project.

Now, the developers are planning a three-story, 40-unit apartment building for low-income residents, with a focus on disabled and other special-needs tenants. On Thursday, an architect introduced the project to its potential neighbors at a meeting of the Midtown Ventura Community Council. The next step will be to formally submit plans to City Hall and go before the city's Design Review Committee.

Unlike the version of the plan that went before the Community Council a year ago, the new development includes no retail or other commercial space. The ground floor would have a community center for residents and offices for counselors and social service providers. The rest of the building would be studio apartments of 400 to 500 square feet, said Nick Deitch of Main Street Architects.

The apartments would be reserved for people making less than 40 percent of the area's median income, or about $24,000 a year, said Dan Hardy, a developer with the city Housing Authority. Rents would be capped at 30 percent of the resident's income, he said. The Housing Authority and the developer and builder, McCarthy Companies in Oxnard, are cooperating on the project.

Deitch, the architect, told midtown residents that some of the low-income people in the building are likely to be moving out of homelessness.

"This is what we are trying to do, instead of putting them on a bus to take them to a shelter at night so they don't die," he said.

Rob Orth, director of social services for the Salvation Army in Ventura, said the city desperately needs a building like the one proposed for the Ban-Dar site.

"If we have someone we would like to put into a place like this, we don't have anywhere, and they end up in a motel, and especially if they're handicapped, that's not a great situation," he said.

Most of the 30 or so people at the Community Council meeting expressed general support for the project, though some questioned the building's height and its impact on parking and traffic in that part of midtown, near Five Points, Pacific View mall and Community Memorial Hospital.

Lance Baird, who lives a block away from the property, said he supports the concept of affordable housing but would rather see a two-story building than a three-story one.

"We're going to lose the great view that we have," he said. "That's all we're going to see now, and it's really going to impact the neighborhood."